


it's still rock and roll to me

by YourBadKarma



Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bisexuality, Coming of Age, Consensual Underage Sex, Elena Gilbert & Damon Salvatore Friendship, F/M, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Sharing a Bed, Summer Love, Summer Vacation, Teenage Drama, Underage Drinking, but so does ric, children acting like teenagers, damon has so many issues, ish, they balance each other out
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-25
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:02:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26638534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YourBadKarma/pseuds/YourBadKarma
Summary: "It's all such bullshit, but blood is thicker than water, right?"Damon laughed, a horrible, bitter sound, like thunder rattling a windowpane."There's more to the saying," Ric said, "The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb."Eyes of molten silver blinked at him in the darkness.He sucked in a shaky breath, laced their fingers together. "We make our families."...Alaric's ten summers of friendship, a soul-sucking town, and the broken boy he's always loved
Relationships: Alaric Saltzman/Damon Salvatore, Elena Gilbert/Stefan Salvatore
Comments: 11
Kudos: 32





	1. welcome back to the age of jive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Alaric Saltzman is forcibly shipped off to Mystic Falls and encounters the town brat, Damon Salvatore

When you are ten, summer is supposed to be cotton candy daydreams and comic books. Dew dappled grass, lighting bugs, and the lingering scent of campfire smoke in the night. The crackle of thunder in a summer storm and brilliant fireworks that fill the midnight sky with technicolor lights. Breathless laughter as you step off the Tilt-A-Whirl and slosh fried corn dogs onto the carnival pavement. A sky so endless and blue that for the briefest of instants you believe you can reach up and caress the very sun. 

Dazzling as a sparkler in the dark and melancholy as a black-and-white Polaroid.

Alaric is ten when he decides that nothing is less melancholy and dazzling than divorce court. 

At least that’s the sentiment Alaric expresses to his parents when they break the news over half-priced appetizer night at Applebees. With less waxing poetic and more cursing, of course. 

Two signatures, a shitton of paperwork, and Jupiter-sized ~~temper tantrum~~ unrest from Alaric later, Diane née Smith legally drops the Saltzman surname. 

The entire ordeal is amicable, all division of assets and handshakes. The split is supposed to clean, joint custody and the like, except, the pay-by-the-hour judge declares that Alaric may only spend summer vacation with his father. 

Two months and a Wednesday phone call of dad time. 

Whoop dee freakin doo.

Suddenly The Parent Trap looks like the picture of rational custody arrangements.

In a former life, Alaric must have consistently double-parked his Mini Cooper to get this screwed over. Or maybe the judge is still pissed about Alaric calling him a dick and elbowing him in the ribs. Curse his lack of cosmic luck (or, you know, punishment for his asshole behavior), Alaric wishes he’d kneed the man’s crotch instead. 

The ever stoic Ed Saltzman- put that on a tee-shirt- decided that moving himself to Absolutely Buttfucking Nowhere, Virginia is the best way to get a fresh start. 

Most men having a midlife crisis buy a shiny red sports car shaped like a penis. Not lying down in the white-washed hole that is Mystic Falls to grow senile and die. 

Perhaps his mother’s next husband will be a shrink.

Then at least the ten years of intensive psycho-therapy Alaric’s going to need after two months of living in Mystic Falls will be discounted.

The divorce is finalized in late July, just in time for Virginia to grow so hot the devil himself crawled from Hell to beg God to crank the celestial air conditioning. 

Alaric remained silent, jaw clenched with fury type silent, the entire 700-mile drive, but he was absolutely not brooding. Or crying. Or both.

Virginia’s easy to dislike, the atmosphere a bizarre jumble of the Victorian era and “we don’t condone slavery, but we’re still going to have Confederate statues.” 

The house looks as though plucked from one of those glossy Better Homes and Gardens magazines that sits untouched on the corner of every coffee table. A historic, two-story colonial, with a wrap-around porch with a swing and a flower-bed-lined walkway. There’s even a goddamned white picket fence. 

It’s perfect.

Alaric hopes the Property Brother’s choke. 

“Come on son,” Ed says in August, nauseatingly patient smile settling across his face, “you’re going back to Boston in a couple weeks, you should explore Mystic Falls while you can.”

Alaric, who’s reading _How To Deal With Separation: A Guide To Coping With Your Parents Divorce_ atop one of the moving boxes he’s aggressively not unpacking, grunts.

“It could be fun.”

Not more fun than sitting inside all summer and stewing in his ~~childish~~ masculine rage. Besides, Alaric had been to the Mystic Grill (the singular restaurant/bar/hangout in town) and passive-aggressively sipped a Coke at least twice.

Alaric flipped past the chapter titled “Be Patient, Understanding, and Willing To Compromise With Your Parents”. “Whatever, Ed.”

Mystic Falls’ town square was something born from a suburban mother’s wet-dream. 

A manicured lawn of unnaturally green grass. Those little wooden park benches, adorned with the lattice style armrests. A pop-up ice cream booth stands in the corner of the square, blue and white balloons tied with ribbon to the chalkboard menu. 

Alaric resisted the urge to toss vomit. The shiny haired, high-on-nerve-pills PTA moms would be aghast at such a public display. He settled for an overzealous eye roll.

He was only in public to humor his father anyways. After spending all of July and most of August pleading, Alaric had finally conceded leaving his new bedroom to venture into the (very small and extremely boring) outside world. 

He pulled a crumble tenner for the pocket of his jeans and strolled over to the ice cream stand. The blonde teenager manning the business wore a fake smile and uber tight ponytail. A stupid paper hat sat atop Sarah’s (as her plastic nametag proudly decreed) heading, giving her a style less like a Barbie doll and more a Cabbage Patch kid. 

With more force than necessary, he slapped the bill on the uncomfortably warm counter of the stand. He exchanged the money for Rocky Road, and dropped the change in a container labeled “For College”. 

Alaric flopped onto the nearest aforementioned bench. Even the ice cream tasted as though it grew up in a home with two loving parents and had a bright future as a doctor or politician. 

A voice behind Alaric drawled. “Oh you are so-” the voice dragged out the o-sound “not from around here.”

Before Alaric could twist to face whoever was speaking, said disembodied voice hopped over the backrest of the bench and settled beside Alaric. 

The speaker in question was a boy, somewhere just south of ten. The kid was all tousled raven curls and dark eyelashes against porcelain cheeks. Absurdly blue eyes and pouty, pink mouth appeared as though painted on with watercolor paints. He looked akin to a china doll made flesh. 

Alaric (with much self-control) refrained from making any “you’re a real boy now” quips.

“No one in Mystic Falls makes a sour face like that. They’re all rainbow and kittens and rampant alcoholism.” 

Fuck you too, Pinocchio. 

Pinocchio wasn’t wrong though. About Alaric’s surliness or the drinking. 

From what Alaric has observed so far, despite the cheery atmosphere and singular bar, getting horrendously day-drunk seems to be a second job for most adults. All twelve of them.

The boy pulled a spoon from the pocket of his expensive-looking jeans and proceeded to scoop a modest bite of Alaric’s Rocky Road into his mouth. 

“What the hell.”

“Definitely too angry for a tourist,” the kid mused.

“You’re the asshole eating my ice cream.” 

Said ice cream thief remained unfazed. “Yeah, and?”

Alaric remembered Pinocchio as being less of a bitch in the Disney classic. 

“Why-” Alaric asked, taking a long breath through his nose to avoid assaulting a child in the center of town. “-would you do that?”

“You seem _marginally_ interesting.” 

Pinnocchio was also less condescending. 

“As deeply moving as that speech was, fuck off.” 

He moved to take another bite from Alaric’s rapidly diminishing ice cream. Alaric moved the container out of reach, watching as the kid had the audacity to look affronted. 

“Rude,” his expression quickly changed, morphing from a half-scowl to a sly grin. “I’m Damon Salvatore.”

Pinnochio's name sounded old money, I-know-which-utensil-is-the-salad-fork type old money, which explained the kid’s designer jeans. Mystic Falls was just the sort of vicious suburbia to have disgustingly wealthy children just lying about. 

“Alaric Saltzman.” 

Damon studied him as someone might a Rorschach test, trying to make sense of the ever-shifting sea of inkblots. Or perhaps he trying to think of some witty retort about a ten-year-old named fucking Alaric. Either way, Damon had an intensity about him.

And a staring problem.

“You are new to town though? I was, as always, right?” 

More than usual, Alaric wished he wasn’t a (partial) resident of Mystic Falls. He’d settle for living anywhere else right now. A dumpster. The airless vacuum of space. A monastery. New Jersey. “I’m spending the summer, unfortunately.” 

“Well, Ric-” Damon grinned. “-I think this is going to be the beginning of a very beautiful friendship.” 

“I think I’m going to punch you in the face.”

Damon simply waggled his eyebrow, like the threat was a Valentine. Or an invitation for more _amusing_ banter. 

Damon was, upsettingly, marginally interesting as well.

Ric didn’t particularly like Damon, what with the posturing and the arrogance, but he felt some bizarre kinship. Two angry kids in the plastic dollhouse that was Mystic Falls. 

He had just likened Damon to a doll, but he seemed above it. The monotony of small-town life. China mingling amongst plastic. 

Damon was watching him again, the same way a cat might watch a mouse trapped beneath its paw, with dark delight. His eyes were _sharp_ and deceptively blue, pale almost to the point of silver. A color much like the early morning sky.

His ice cream was melting in the sweltering Virginia heat, paper dish crinkling in Alaric’s vice grips. Although, Ric suspected he was folding ever worse under Damon’s eagle-eyed stair. Damon reached over once more, burgling a mostly liquid bite. 

“Here,” Alaric handed over the soupy remnants of his Rocky Road and stood. “keep it.” 

“I’ll see you again someday, won’t I?” The tone dripped with sarcasm and was accompanied by an over-exaggerated batting of eyelashes, but Alaric thought he could almost detect genuine curiosity. 

He gave a tip-lipped smile. “Tragically, yes.” 

“Did you make any friends?” Ed asks over dinner. 

Alaric prodded his burnt steak and undercooked potatoes with a fork. “I threatened to hit some kid. I think he’s rich, hope he doesn’t sue for ‘emotional damages’.”

“Ric,” Ed looked up from his meal, face tired and paternal. Like this isn’t all his fault. “please, for me, try to behave.”

A retort something along the lines of “ayy ayy, captain” (probably accompanied by a jaunty two-fingered salute) bubbled on Alaric’s lips. It would feel delightful at the moment, to let that anger coiling in his stomach like a cobra in a cage free, to watch his father’s face crumple with disappointment. 

Years down the line, when Alaric stared back through the narrow as the barrel of a gun perspective that is memory and must face all the wretched things he’s done in fits of anger, this moment would have topped the list. Alaric really hated quiet reflection. 

“I’ll try.” 

Ever the ~~wounded trying sorry~~ prodigal son, Alaric does. 

Alaric found himself staring down a nondescript moving box. 

The box was just a box, bulky and unattractive, the color of dried-out dirt or cheap spray paint, yet, Ric hated this box especially. He hated the atrocious shade of brown, the squicky feeling of cardboard beneath his fingernails, how he had to pack his former life into 20” x 20” x 15” of space. 

He had planned to never open the boxes, to let his comic books and boxing gloves gather dust for all time as some sort of silent protest against, well, everything. 

Alaric pulled open the flaps and reached into the box, hand curling around a picture frame. He pulled the picture closer to his face, studying it. His mother must have packed the stupid thing, for the image displayed his mother and father standing on the stone steps of their home in Boston, picturesque smiles printed onto their faces. Alaric stood between them, blissfully unaware, grinning against the cloudless blue of the sky. 

His grandfather had taken the picture last summer, just before they all headed to a Red Sox game. Alaric had thought his parents were happy, but now the baseball game felt like a preemptive apology for what was to come. The last calm wave before a tsunami. 

Alaric thrust the picture back into the box.  
He shook the feeling of loneliness that spread inside him, as frigid and sharp as liquid nitrogen seeping over his bones. 

“I’m going out,” Ric called. 

His father smiled, overly pleased. Ed never had any talent for reading the mood of a room. Alaric told himself he didn’t care, would take the false perception over his father’s surefire pity anyday. Better to simmer with disappointment than being looked upon with pity, a glass bird fluttering listlessly in a cage. 

Damon lay sprawled across the park bench, loose-limbed and lazy. Delicately eating some flavor of ice cream, something the palest shade of yellow, carrying the scent of ripening fruit. 

“Is lurking in public spaces to harass strangers a hobby of yours?”

“I prefer the term ‘menace’,” Damon grinned like a feral cat. Perhaps he was feral, had beaten and robbed some naive rich kid of their fancy clothes. After all, nobody who could pass as an extra on _Toddlers and Tiaras_ should have been able to make such a leering expression. “Don’t worry Ric, you're special.”

Alaric grit his teeth. “You make Damien from _The Omen_ look like a tweed-wearing boy scout.” 

Damon seemed to take that as a compliment. 

It registered then that Damon had simply expected that Ric would be so enamored with him, he would seek Damon's company again. Bastard. Ric wasn’t in the mood to correct him.

Damon had maneuvered Ric into a position in which he must either stroke Damon’s already dangerously inflated ego or divulge personal information. Ric was playing checkers while Damon played chess. No, Ric was playing checkers and Damon was playing fucking circle mahjong. 

Ric pulled his lips into an overwrought smile and -as per usual- chose to ignore the situation entirely. 

“Why do you-” Ric made a vague, sweeping gesture with a hand. “-lurk?”

“Besides your wonderful company?” Damon snarked. “Mother takes pottery or pilates or whatever class it is that bored housewives take in the SoulCycle wannabe studio across the street. I tag along.”

What a surprisingly normal answer from the guy who’s best (and only) talent seemed to be cha-chaing away from answering questions of substance.

“Lucky me,” Alaric groused. 

“Lucky you indeed.”

Technically, Ric doesn’t even like Damon. He was a brat and a bastard and made too many hand gestures when he talked. Which was constantly. 

On the other hand, Alaric knew approximately zero other people who live in Mystic Falls. Alaric had run out of novels, his collection of reading material had dwindled to brochures and Zagat guides. 

Circumstance and sheer boredom were starting to edge out his better sensibilities (which screamed “Damon Salvatore is a dick”) on the Damon matter.

Not that Alaric spent exorbitant amounts of time thinking about Damon. That would be weird. 

Regardless, he returned to the town square the next day. Then the next. And then the day after that. Bike to the town square, buy ice cream, engage in a verbal sparring match with Damon, rinse and repeat. 

Ric could make a worse friend, but the bar was low. The bar was on the ground. The bar was on the ground and Damon fucking Salvatore brought a shovel. 

“Megadeth is better than Metallica.” 

Two words. Low bar. 

“You tasteless, ignorant dick. Metallica is art. Megadeth is hair metal's disgraced cousin.” 

“Oh contraire, Ric.” 

And on and on they went. 

Leaving Mystic Falls sucked. 

As far as summers go, Alaric’s had better. Coney Island and Florida, not a boy on a bench. Yet, despite everything that says Alaric Saltzman, master of poor anger management, should have spent his summer sulking and generally expressing his discontent, Alaric hadn’t. 

Instead, he had developed some ill-fated attachment to the backwater town he was supposed to despise. Alaric had nothing now, only simmering resentment and a sense of emptiness pooling in his stomach. 

Leaving wasn’t supposed to be like this. This is the part where Alaric woke up and realized Oz was just an awful dream. That his parents are still married and he’s never set foot in Pleasantville's incest baby, Mystic Falls. 

He’s supposed to be relieved. 

They both pretend Ed doesn’t get teary-eyed. Alaric hugs him, like a good son, and for once wished he could let go of his misplaced rage. 

“Say your goodbyes,” his father says, so fucking gently, like Alaric is deserving of sympathy. 

He nodded, fought down the empathy that threatened to choke him. 

Alaric dragged out the trip as if nothing would change if he only postponed making a choice. Damon stood by the usual park bench, he refused to sit, face pensive. 

Damon's perceptive as the moon, always knows when the tides are changing. 

“I’m leaving,” Ric said, stone-faced and grim. “I’m going back to Boston. 

With as few details as possible, Alaric had offhandedly mentioned that he was going home after the summer. Damon had always known what was coming. 

Yet, Damon almost looked _upset_. 

Ric had always ~~known~~ assumed he was a simple whim for Damon. A shiny trinket to occupy his time until Alaric started to rust or someone more exciting came along. A no strings attached, expendable, one-time-deal of an arrangement. 

Alaric often makes the mistake of assuming he knows things. He believed his parents were in love till the bitter end, utterly blind to the whispered signs of malcontent, like a disbelieving man who ignored the howling of the wolves until the slavering beats stood at his threshold.

Even in his own allegory, Alaric is left foolish and alone. It seems fitting. 

His worst mistake is thinking he knew anything about Damon Salvatore. A cliche even at nine, all snarl and snark and dark wash jeans. 

“I’m not doing this, Ric,” A frightening imitation of a smile flashed across Damon’s face, a humorless, too many teeth and nothing behind the eyes. “No goodbyes. You’re going to leave, shove everything deep down inside yourself and lock it away. Pretend or forget, whichever you’re better at. Then, you’ll come back.”

Ric blinked at Damon, watching him as time fluctuated and bent and defied all the laws of nature. Time seemed to stretch, dancing before his eyes. Damon was burned into his brain, tattooed beneath his skin. 

“Okay.”

For the first time since the divorce, since Mystic Falls, since everything that had torn his life apart like a cookie in a toddler’s fist, Alaric cried. 

He doesn’t stop till Boston.


	2. nowadays you can't be too sentimental

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Ric hates civil war documentaries and Damon has parental issues.

In typical Alaric (hell in typical Saltzman) fashion, he chooses to pretend his issues are nonexistent. 

It’s perfectly healthy, shut up. 

Forgetting was never an option. Forgetting meant letting go of his anger and realizing the destruction of his parents' marriage was a mutual effort. That Ed, damn him, cannot be held solely accountable. Meant accepting that Mystic Falls, one-horse and backwater as it was, wasn’t the absolute shittiest town on the face of the earth. 

Meant following the advice of a two-bit townie with snark for days and eyes that sparkled with ~~a pretty blue shade of~~ vindictive glee.

And really, Alaric is too young to have a complex, healthy coping mechanisms be damned.

His summer in Mystic Falls doesn’t quite feel _solid_. Void and surreal like a half-forgotten dream. 

School comes and goes. Stiff chairs, science textbooks, and the violation of the Geneva convention that is fractions, and summer rolls around once again. 

Mystic Falls looms ever closer, and Alaric is faced with the realization that, unless the town water is filled with LSD (which might explain some of the mayoral decisions), he befriended the town scourge, and must interact with him again. 

He’s disproportionately excited. 

His mother drives him this time. Hums along to the Christian rocks station his grandmother loves, fingers drumming against the steering wheel as they roll through Delaware’s endless fields of corn. She parks the car a few houses down from Ed’s. 

“Behave for your father,” Diane says. Her smile is soft, but that doesn't soften the harshety of the blow any.

Unbidden, Alaric remembers eating hotdogs at the state fair with his parents, chins dripping with liquid cheese and ketchup. His mother had kissed Ed with a mouth that tasted of meat, and Alaric had pretended to find the whole display disgusting. His mother had only smiled, _I love you_ , she had laughed, _I love you both so much_. 

He could still picture her expression, cackling as the neon lights of the Ferris wheel casting her in a flashing red glow. Her joy had been palpable, so raw and genuine. Eyes aglow, head tilted back to soak in the stars. Desperately happy. 

Or so Alaric believed. 

Now, cast in a more subdued light, peach-toned and plain, she just seemed tired. Refusing to so much as look upon his father, and reminding Alaric to behave.

He just nodded. 

Alaric exchanges the standard uncomfortable father-son hug, shifting from foot-to-foot under his father’s tragically hopeful gaze. Ed talks, meaningless words about seeing this and that, jabbering on about some summer itinerary. He’ll lose interest once he remembers that Alaric is still Alaric, not some shiny new novelty of a son primed and ready to begin anew. 

He imagines every summer will fit a similar mold. Ed will be full of hope, so confident that Alaric is finally ready to move on, finally ready to be a good son. Alaric will only disappoint. By the end of the summer, they’ll both be drowning in it. 

But that’s fine, Ed can go choke on his fresh start.

His bedroom is as he left it. Sheets haphazardly strew across the bed, cardboard boxes stacked in one corner. A fine layer of dust settles atop his dresser.

Ed hadn’t touched a thing. 

The room lacks personality, walls a blank white, no rug or plants or excess furniture. A room for a guest, not a home. 

Never a home. 

Alaric can’t imagine truly living here. Resting amongst the neglected packages and unused bed, collecting dust with all the other forgotten things. Rotting alone in the swelter of the Virginia heat. 

It seems so pathetic. 

He sits on the edge of his bed, energy spent, overcome with drowsiness. 

Alaric snorts. Like rotting in Boston is any better.

...

Alaric dragged himself to town square some days later. 

Bored and dangerously close to becoming chicken noodle Alaric with all the stewing he’s been indulging in, he had nothing better to do than skulk around the town square in hopes of seeing the guy he sorta, kinda, maybe befriended. 

God, he’s pathetic. 

Someone else occupied the bench, which was likely a good thing. _Remember me? You totally stalked me last summer and now I’m back for round two! How well adjusted I am!_

A kid, seven or eight perhaps, floppy-haired and soft-faced as a cherub, sat on the bench. He blinked owlishly at Alaric with eyes that swallowed his face, deep green and puppyish. 

“May I help you?” 

Alaric would have scoffed if the kid didn’t look so sincere. Stiff and nervous, but sincere. 

He weighed his options. Being associated with Damon versus soul-crushing boredom. 

He opted for the latter. 

“Do you know Damon Salvatore?”

“Is-” Blinky looked wary, as though Alaric was part of some reality television show, and the cameraman might jump from behind the nearest stupidly well-trimmed shrub to spray him with silly string. “-is this a joke?”

“I-” Maybe Ric hadn’t been so far off with his theory about Damon being public enemy number one. “-nevermind.” 

Damon appeared as if saying his name had summoned him. Like a leech or a mosquito or any manner of blood-sucking creature. A vampire. A vampire bat. Bloody Mary. A stand-up comedian. 

“Oh Ric, are you making nice with my _darling baby brother_? Warms my unbeating heart.” 

“You don’t have a heart.” More pressingly. “Jesus Christ, there’s more of you?” 

Ric once had a similar nightmare. An infinite number of Damons crawled from beneath his bed to critique Alaric’s fashion sense and then stab him. The knife hadn’t even been nice either, only a cheap, box-cutting, Exacto knife. The real, non-nightmare - although all versions of Damon were vaguely nightmarish - Damon would have sprung for a more attractive murder weapon. Like a ruby-encrusted dagger, or at least one of those fancy, all-metal, German kitchen knives. 

Alaric had tried to psychoanalyze his dream, but “Damon is the devil’s spawn, beware” seemed to be the only conclusion he could draw. With the sudden appearance of Salvatore numero dos, the possibility of Alaric’s premonition coming to fruition grew exponentially. 

“Don’t act like we're not besties, Ric.” 

“I don’t like you.” 

_Liar_ , crowed the voice in his head. The voice used to be remnant of Kid Rock, but it sounded suspiciously like Damon these days. 

He told the voice to shut the fuck up. 

“I know,” Damon agreed, “that’s what makes this so much fun.” 

Salvatore the II watched them with liquid eyes, even blinkier than before. 

“Where are my manners?” Damon exclaimed with feigned shock. “Ric this is Stefan, Stefan this is Ric.” 

Stefan offered a hand and a shaky smile. “Nice to meet you, Ric.” 

“No need for formalities, brother. Ric’s-” he smirked, the bastard. “-a friend.” 

Alaric shook Stefan’s hand, fat-fingered with youth. 

Half-convinced he was being punked by a starry-eyed kid and his feral brother, he said, “It’s- it’s nice to meet you, too.” 

“Great.” Damon clapped his hands, reminiscent of a soulless orchestra conductor. “Now run along, Stefan, mother’s looking for you.” 

Stefan, disturbingly, seemed wounded by his big brother’s dismissal. 

Damon sighed. With an over zealous roll of his eyes, he crouched to Stefan’s level. “Mother wants you right now, Stef, and _I want_ to speak to Ric. We’ll play later.” 

Stefan obeyed, a shy grin blooming on his dimpled features. 

Alaric was almost too distracted with the way Damon could make ever “speak” sound dirty to mock his obvious affection for his brother. Almost. 

Damon rounded on him, a dangerously saccharine smile gracing his face. “Shut up.” 

He laughed. “I thought it was sweet.”

“I’m warning you.” 

So Damon had dimensions. Who knew? Stefan apparently. “You actually like someone, it’s shocking. Beyond shocking. Breaking new on CN-fucking-N shocking.” 

“I’ll pour cement into your ears.” 

“Granted, it’s your oddly cultured kid brother. Who you’re nothing like” 

“I’ll boil your teeth.” 

“Stefan is so polite, so reserved,-” 

“I might even invert your spleen.”

“ -so not a freakish James Dean - The Vampire Lestat hybrid.” 

Damon pouted, “If I had feelings? They would be wounded.” 

“A man can dream.” 

...

Ric adjusted to life in Mystic Falls better the second time around. The small-town atmosphere was just as stifling, and the people just as bizarrely or backhandedly friendly. Ric wasn’t a fan of either, but he wasn’t brooding in his bedroom either. 

Baby steps, lite. 

Damon, however, had never fucking heard of baby steps. 

He sat atop Alaric’s kitchen counter, sipping coffee from a _World's Best Dad Mug_.

Ric was 99% sure he didn’t own a _World’s Best Dad Mug_. 

He’s also 99% sure he never told Damon where he lives. 

“You’re in my house.” 

“Your coffee sucks,” he set down the mug. 

Alaric closed his eyes and counted to ten. When he blinked them open, Damon hadn’t disappeared. There went his LSD in the drinking water theory. “You. Are. In. My. House.” 

“Your house with sucky coffee.” Damon tilted his mug to show Alaric the offending beverage. Damon had topped it with whip cream. 

Alaric sputtered. Damon often seemed to inspire that reaction in him. “You broke into my house.” 

Damon tilted his head, a strangely innocent expression for the guy actively committing the first steps in a B&E. Fuck Damon and his stupid doll face. “Your door was unlocked.”

Ric made a mental note to start locking his front door. 

“That doesn’t mean you can just waltz into my house.”

Damon only grew more confused, as though boundaries were such a foreign concept. For Damon, they probably were. “We’re friends, mi casa es su casa.”

He ran out of arguments. Obviously, Damon did not operate on human rationale. 

Damon slid from the countertop. “Wanna watch television?” 

_Do I want to watch television on my own TV with Stouthrief Salvatore?_ “Yeah, okay.”

Mystic Falls, Virginia received exactly twenty-two television channels. Twelve displayed news, three were weather channels, and five crooned only country music. With the exception of alternate Tuesdays, the other seven channels played nothing but historical documentaries. Historical civil war documentaries. 

Self-obsessed, confederate-sympathizing bastards. 

He flipped on “Ride With the Devil”. The movie was already halfway finished, but Ric had seen it a few too many times before. “Cold Mountain” followed, then “The Red Badge of Courage''. 

Damon draped himself across the length of the couch, feet tossed into Ric’s lap. Satisfied to sip his terrible coffee and point out historical inaccuracies and generally invade Alaric’s personal space, Damon watched the television in relative silence. Only interrupting with the occasion _those cannons should be facing left_ , or, _confederate uniforms were made from cotton twill, not cotton blend_. 

“Civil war buff?”

Damon shrugged, eyes never moving from the screen. “It’s a Salvatore thing.”

The entirety of Damon’s character could be summarized by _it’s a Salvatore thing_. 

The fourth movie ended, some epic with guns and Jeff Daniels he can’t remember the name of. Damon squirmed from his spot, foot nearly kicking Ric in the jaw. 

“I should go.”

Ric doubted Damon had ever done anything he _should_ , but Ed would be home soon, and Ric itched to retreat to his bedroom to avoid paternal conversation. 

Damon grinned, less wolfish than usual. “Don’t fret, Ric. I’ll be back.”

Of that, he never doubts.

...

Last November, Alaric wrote a psychology paper on folie à deux for Wellness class. 

A delusion shared by two. 

Alaric thinks Damon is batshit fucking insane, but what does that make him for allowing Damon’s particular brand of crazy? An enabler? A bystander? A new, funky fresh, sort of psycho? 

Thus, a delusion shared by two. Ish. The comparison is accurate enough. Exact definition notwithstanding. 

Ric’s point is, that Damon Salvatore, without a doubt, is off-the-walls, Grade A, one hundred and one percent, certifiable. 

“Wake up, Ric.” 

Alaric was not proud of the girlish yelp he emitted. 

However, in his defense, he did not expect to be woken up to Damon hovering mere inches over his bed. 

“Oh, God,” he moaned, “you’ve finally snapped.” 

“I’m not here to kill you,” Damon protested. “Yet.”

Damon moved from his bedside, running his fingers along the top of his dusty dresser. He opened the top drawer, frowning at its lack of contents.

Perhaps Alaric would have been more peeved at Damon’s invasion of privacy had he not been actively fearing for his life. “How did you get in?”

“It was unlocked.”

Alaric knew with absolute certainty that his front door was locked. He had specifically requested his father lock the door before heading to work, just for the pleasure of imagining Damon’s face when he realized he could not get inside.

“The door was locked.”

“Your window wasn’t.”

Ric made a mental note to start locking his bedroom window. His second-story bedroom window.

“What the fuck,” He muttered, “what the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuuuck.” 

Damon rolled his eyes. “Do we really have to go through this again? Yes, I’m in your house. Yes, your coffee is terrible. This has been established.” 

Ric considered asking why Damon was in his house. Ric considered asking if Damon had lost his singular marble. He ever considered letting out a series of incoherent shrieks until either Damon vacated the premises or Alaric felt marginally better. 

Instead, Ric asked, “Do ya wanna watch TV?”

Damon had good teeth. Pearly white and perfectly straight, but exceedingly sharp. Pointed canines and serrated molars. Alaric had learned the hard way after almost being bitten by Damon during a past argument over the merits of the color orange. Damon hated orange. And dealing with opposition through non violent methods.

To say Damon smiled like a shark was not an exaggeration. “Gone With the Wind?”

...

Damon was like a bad habit. 

Not a bad habit in the way cocaine or heroin or animated tentacle porn is a bad habit, but a bad habit like repeatedly stubbing your toe against a brick wall is a bad habit. 

Ric considered making a secondary analogy with him as the proverbial toe and Damon as the brick wall, but somehow, he managed to restrain himself. 

Damon ate ice cream straight from the carton, strawberry, or mango, or whatever other disgustingly low-fat flavor his father bought. Always something fruity that Ric would never think to touch. Hell, Ric still hadn’t ruled out the possibility that Damon’s affinity for strange ice cream flavors wasn’t an intimidation tactic. 

In the background, Indiana Jones - thank fuck for alternate Tuesdays - played and Damon watched with rapt attention. 

Damon’s got a serious thing for Harrison Ford. 

Maybe it’s the hat, or the leather jacket, but Damon’s fascination bordered on disturbing. 

“You’re drooling.” 

Alaric was promptly shushed. No retort, or bitching, only a quick shush in the presence of Harrison Ford. 

He’d suffered two weeks of Damon’s snacking and snapping and general elbow throwing, but the unhealthy interest in Harrison Ford may be where he drew the line. 

A marathon of Indiana Jones cycled, forcing Ric to watch _Raiders of The Lost Ark_ and then _Raiders of The Lost Ark Bonus Feature; Directors Cut!_ within five hours of each other. However, anything was better than war documentaries at this point. Ric’s going to claw out his own eyes if the phrase “southern pride” is uttered one more time. 

At least his fear of being held at gunpoint and forced to recite the entire life story of Robert Lee had been quelled. 

Alaric was so spellbound by Harrison Ford and the glory of actual television, he forgets his father’s existence. It’s the fatal flaw. 

Alaric Saltzman, befallen by his own tragic hubris. 

Mayhaps “befell” was too histrionic a word. Nonetheless, Ric’s left to stand dumbly, cheeks flushed an embarrassed vermilion as his father’s eyes flit from him to Damon and back again. 

“Who’s your friend, son?” his tone lacks heats, more cautiously hopeful and a little mystified. 

Apparently, stranger danger has been thrown right out the window at the prospect of Alaric having a friend. 

Ouch.

Damon was not chastised. He drew himself up, chin jutted, testing the waters with a defiant foot. “Damon Salvatore.” 

“Salvatore,” Ed hummed, a note of hazy recognition coloring his voice. “That name sounds familiar.”

Damon tensed, he was out of his element, jaw ticking with unrest. “It's a small town.”

Ric was never the most prodigal of sons, prone to blame and the dreaded cold-shoulder when displeased, but ever terrible kin such as he should have intervened. Prevented Damon from exercising whatever crisis he was going through on his father. 

“I suppose.” Ed remained blind to Damon’s hostility. “Nice to meet you, Damon. Are you a friend of Ric’s?” 

Damon startled, but only to a degree, allowing himself a quick forehead scrunch of surprise. The shock faded quickly, features soon schooling back into a mask of indifference. 

Alaric, emotionally stunted idiot as he was, had a far better handle on reading emotions than his father. And Damon… Damon was projecting something very bad. Ric’s skin prickled at Damon’s unease. 

“Yes.” His tone was flat, lacking the edge of mockery Alaric had come to associate with all things Damon. 

His eyes never strayed from Ed, a one-sided staring contest.

“Great,” Ed smiled, crow’s feet wrinkling at the corner of his eyes. “he could use some of those.” 

Damon made a small noise of agreement. 

“Well then,” his father wrung his hands, still smiling. “I’ll leave you kids to it.” 

Damon’s gaze followed his father from the room.

“What was that?”

Damon was not someone who appreciated being pounced upon. When backed into a corner, he’d sooner claw than submit. “Nothing.” 

“Nothing?” Ric snorted, “You lost your shit.”

“Well,” Damon snapped, tone bordering on acidic. “parents tend not to like me.”

Ric read the anger in the tension of Damon’s muscles, in the steely glint to his eye and clench of his jaw. But he didn’t understand _why_. “I don’t get you.” 

“You don’t _know_ me.” 

In the end, how much did he really _know_ about Damon?

Damon Salvatore, the boy with an angelic face and demonic personality. Who Ric knew next to nothing about, but could still leave him feeling all jumbled inside, like a poorly pieced together jigsaw puzzle. 

Ric opened his mouth, perhaps to defend himself, but no words split over his lips. He wished he could wax soliloquies, could spin lies on his silver-tongue to satiate the wrath simmering beneath the pale expanse of Damon’s skin. 

Instead, he stood dumbly, heart jackhammering against his ribcage, nursing the icy sting of Damon’s words. Confusion and emptiness warred within his head, leaving Alaric somewhere between foggy and numb. Damon took poorly to the silence, needing a medium for his rage, an outlet for his ever-accumulating fury. 

“Then tell me,” Ric muttered after several beats of silencing. He was aiming for softness, a sound that portrayed understanding without pity. He missed by a mile. 

Even to his own ears, Ric just sounded lost. 

“That wasn’t an invitation to ask my favorite color, Ric.”

Fleeing was not the right word to describe Damon’s departure. Fleeing connotated fear, and no man would ever accuse Damon of operating on anything but misplaced wroth. 

Damon hadn’t even the decency to slam the door. 

Which was worse, trying to unravel the enigma that was Damon, or to forever be in the dark?

He reached no conclusion other than he really, _really_ hated philosophical quandaries. 

...

Alaric considered moping his new greatest talent. He’s actually going for gold in the Summer Olympics of sulky upset thankyouverymuch. 

The feelings of anger and betrayal aren’t, but the guilt? No, wait, that isn’t new either. However, his previous guilt was abstract, guilt over a concept. Now, the guilt is palpable and real, earned over actions. 

Alaric upset his friend (friend?) and must face the consequences all on his lonesome. 

Ric liked to consider himself mature for his age. He drank coffee. He was in advance placement in school. He made astute literary references. He had only cried himself to sleep, like, twice over his parents divorce. But emotional maturity?

It sucked. A lot. And Ric sucked at it. A lot.

Civil war documentaries were nearly as fun to ~~mock~~ watch without Damon. Damon made pointing out historical inaccuracies interesting, somehow.

Missing the company of Damon Salvatore was a new low.

God, he was lonely. And pathetic. And pathetically lonely. 

“Fuck it.” he hissed, some weeks later, the night before his triumphant return to Boston.

The weather was decidedly August-like, a hazy sort of heat that pooled sticky on your skin. He grabbed his bicycle, ignoring the sweat beading against his neck, and rode to the park. Whether or not Damon would actually be in attendance, Ric didn’t know, but he was tired of moping. Tired of boredom and confusion and rage. Tired. 

Thank God - the very God that seemed so pleased to use Ric like a human cat-toy - Damon had chosen today to make his grand appearance. He sat on their bench, kicking the grass with an extensive shoe.

“Where’s Stefan?”

Damon didn’t startle, or for that matter, tear his gaze from the grass. 

“With my mother,” Damon scuffed his foot harder against the ground. “he always was a mama's boy.”

Ric’s mouth went dry. Words escaped him. -20 foresight on his part.

“Spit it out, Ric. What do you want.” 

Ric sat beside Damon. He hadn’t expected this, for Damon to be so direct. Damon loved the dance, loved to twirl you ‘round and around in circles until you forgot what you asked him in the first place. 

The silence stretched, hovering heavy, “I don’t know.”

“How helpful.”

Anger bubbled up in his chest. “Well maybe if you weren’t such a dick-”

“I am a dick. That’s my fucking MO. Damon Salvatore, World Class dick.”

“Well you don’t have to be. God, Damon, I’m trying to extend an olive branch and you’re setting the fucking branch on fire.” 

“I know!” 

Ric panted, chest heaving with uneven breaths. 

Damon finally moved his gaze from the ground, turning those ice chip eyes on Ric. They were searching, probing Alaric to the very depths of his soul. “I don’t do peace. And I don’t do easy.”

Ric swallowed. “No, you certainly don’t.” 

They sat in silence. His anger had swelled too hot too quickly. Once spent, Ric was left vaguely nauseous, pulse thrumming in his ears. 

“Just, fuck, I don’t know, just let me know if you’re gonna lose it again?”

“I’ll CC you.” 

Ric huffed a laugh, more from the nervous crash of adrenaline crash than true humor. “You do that.” 

Ric took a long breath, buying himself precious seconds  
“You were right, though. I don’t know you, not really.” He paused a moment, “but that doesn't mean I don’t want to.”

Damon pointed towards his head with an index finger. “It’s not much fun in here.” 

“You’re very twisted for a ten-year-old.”

“What can I say?” Damon shrugged. “I’m advanced.”

The corners of Ric’s mouth tugged into a smile. “I mean it though. For some godforsaken reason, I don’t _hate you_. Guess I shouldn't know what I’m getting into.” 

“Your mistake.” 

They lapsed into silence again.

Ric broke the quiet after a moment. “I’m a- I’m leaving again tomorrow, for Boston.”

Damon’s eyes flitted away from Ric’s face. “You’ll be back?”

He felt compelled, cracked open and scrapped raw, “Always.”

And so he fled, turned tail and ran from Damon’s wide eyes and emotional vulnerability. 

“Ric,” Damon called after him.

Ric turned. 

“I like blue.” 

He blinked, trying to place the words. His mind returned Damon, snarling at him, _that wasn’t an invitation to ask my favorite color, Ric_. 

Oh. 

“Yeah?” Ric said, “I like blue, too.”

It felt remarkably like trust. 

...

There were no tears. Ed’s smile wavered, too watery to be genuine, but no tears were shed. 

He stood on the porch, the wrap-around one that filled him with such vexation, waiting for his mother to arrive. 

That was as close to a family, a whole family, as Ric would come for a very long time. 

Ed stood beside him, one hand settled on the Ric’s lightly packed suitcase, and the other on his shoulder. 

“Dad?” The word felt strange, foreign on his tongue. 

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry.”

Ed’s hand was warm on his shoulder. “I know.” 

It felt remarkably like trust.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ric and Damon are very angsty children, but in my defense Damon is very angsty as a 170+ year old vampire too.

**Author's Note:**

> Ric's not really his mellow, border-line alcoholic, adult self, but I imagine it took years and marriage to get him to calm down. Sorry if the dialogue is out of character, or mature for kids, but I cannot imagine Damon or Ric talking ever really talking/acting very childish. Also, there will be ten-ish chapters.


End file.
